Lara Barnes wrote:Hi, can people who organised these or qualified from these for the British 2012 let me know please. Thanks

e2e4 Amersham Congress

Hi Lara - I don't know who is pre-qualified, or has qualified from elsewhere, especially as not all qualifiers from previous events are online. But you can find the results from Amersham here and work out the qualifier from that.

Last edited by Sean Hewitt on Sat May 26, 2012 10:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Blackpool - James Hanley (shown on the prizes page of their website)
Southend Jim Burnett - (crosstable on website, he is the only one on 5 or above not previously qualified)
London Xmas Congress - Michael White and Nasir Rizvi
London U18/U21 Jasper Tambini
e2e4 Amersham - Winner on SPS was David Spence - I have no information about any previous qualification from him for this year.

I'll be there and my entry form is ready to post. Sadly some folk down south believe the Tyne is a northern bridge too far or they canâ€™t be bothered to learn a new language. Anyway they are either wavering or have already decided not to come.

Numbers do look down at the moment. I counted just 109 entries this morning. Around this time last year Carl Hibbard reported there had been 181 entries for Sheffield by the end of May 2011 (which he said was down on the same period for Canterbury in 2010).

One person told me they had been put off going by last yearâ€™s mother of all chess rows and wonâ€™t be going again until the fatwa against the President is repealed and hatchets are buried on both sides. Which seems unlikely given the entrench positions. And then there's the attraction of the Olympics. These are no doubt contributory factors.

However, Iâ€™m not sure what to make of the latest figures. Lara reported a month ago that five GMs had confirmed their places - yet only one appears on the list. And the family Camp have been perplexed why their names are missing when entry fees were charged to their account weeks ago. Perhaps in the next update weâ€™ll see numbers soar as the absent entries are discovered - surely there must be more than 109?

I'll be there and my entry form is ready to post. Sadly some folk down south believe the Tyne is a northern bridge too far or they canâ€™t be bothered to learn a new language. Anyway they are either wavering or have already decided not to come.

Numbers do look down at the moment. I counted just 109 entries this morning. Around this time last year Carl Hibbard reported there had been 181 entries for Sheffield by the end of May 2011 (which he said was down on the same period for Canterbury in 2010).

One person told me they had been put off going by last yearâ€™s mother of all chess rows and wonâ€™t be going again until the fatwa against the President is repealed and hatchets are buried on both sides. Which seems unlikely given the entrench positions. And then there's the attraction of the Olympics. These are no doubt contributory factors.

However, Iâ€™m not sure what to make of the latest figures. Lara reported a month ago that five GMs had confirmed their places - yet only one appears on the list. And the family Camp have been perplexed why their names are missing when entry fees were charged to their account weeks ago. Perhaps in the next update weâ€™ll see numbers soar as the absent entries are discovered - surely there must be more than 109?

Itâ€™s still going to be a great fortnight - are you going?

With respect a lot of people feel that the "fatwa" is working the other way and that the President and his friends are briefing and undermining those organising this year's event. All the president needs to do is admit his actions in Sheffield - in going too hastily to the press, most people are willing to accept what happened prior to that was a misunderstanding - have had unforseen consequences and have been very damaging for one person in particular and take a lead in setting the record straight by refuting those people who still misrepresent what happened. The President would hopefully be welcomed back with open arms if he could do this; most people are sick of constant schisms in chess and it's worth noting that the President could have been the one to lead us away from that for once and for all.

I am planning to go (first time I've been to the British) although it will most likely be as a spectator on a day trip. It depends on what day(s) I get off during the championship.

Well done William. Any chance of getting something about the championships on the NCCU website (forgive me if it's there already!)? It would help drum up some publicity. I was playing for the Kent Under-140 team in 2010 when the championships were taking place in Canterbury. Most of my team mates seemed oblivious that they were taking place at all, never mind in their own county!

Andrew wrote;
'With respect a lot of people feel that the "fatwa" is working the other way and that the President and his friends are briefing and undermining those organising this year's event'. end of quote.

Whose to say if that is correct or not however if it is true it would not surprise me one little bit.

I have just visited the Web site for the British and find that Alex Mc is not an arbiter, probably his choice given the appauling way hes been treated. No doubt hes offering a lot of support/help to Lara.

Personally I would be very happy to read Mr De-Mooi had not found the time(or the right T shirt) to visit the Championships. Northern people will see to it that the event will be a cracker even if some players decide to boycott it.

I thought hard before commenting further as I'm not sure if anybody is benefitting from this continuing debate and certainly not Lara Barnes who is working her hardest to deliver an amazing event under very difficult circumstances.

Mr Gilbert speaks of a `fatwa` against the president. Alex and Lara have made it clear time and time again that their deepest wish is for this dispute to be resolved amicably. It is public knowledge that Sean Hewitt was trying to mediate until the board halted the process saying that it did not think mediation would be successful and could not continue with the process in good faith. This suggests one of two things, either the President is not willing to mediate (in which case why can he not say that) or there is something else involved nobody knows about.

I'm starting to feel that there are people on both sides who are trying to prolong this debate to their own ends and are driving the two parties further apart. The absence of any comment from CJ de Mooi makes it hard to guess his exact feelings but he has come in for some fierce criticism on this properly moderated forum - what are the odds that he has received private communications that are abusive and genuinely homophobic in nature (I have a reasonable amount of circumstantial evidence to back up this speculation)?

This whole farrago happened because the President decided to take a stand against bigotry in chess. Not everybody will agree but I do feel that chess is often played by an older, more conservative generation and that he had a point in doing so. There appears to be a consensus on this forum that whatever the rights and wrongs of this incident (and I also think there is a failure to seperate it into two slightly different issues which doesn't help) homophobia or any other form of bigotry has no place in chess. Given that this was the whole point of raising the issue in the first place it is a massive shame that CJ de Mooi abdicated this argument when it was pretty much won. If you're going to stand on a platform against anti discrimination, be it sexism, racism or homophobia you are going to have somebody objecting. That's when you make your stand - hurrying for the nearest exit gives a very mixed message.

To me it seems there is so much common ground between the two parties it is almost unbelievable - that's why so many people are banging their heads in frustration that a resolution seems to be further and further away.